


Love is the Shrapnel in my Heart

by SomeoneAsGoodAsYou (the_wanlorn)



Series: Whumptober 2019 [2]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Season/Series 04, Whumptober 2019, also:, hands have been waved yet again, in this fic:, it goes off, it's just that i don't want to write it now, it's not that i don't want to write a fic dealing with how he got back, there is a bomb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 18:02:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20878406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wanlorn/pseuds/SomeoneAsGoodAsYou
Summary: A bomb goes off and Lucifer gets hurt. Chloe takes care of him.





	Love is the Shrapnel in my Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Whumptober 2019, day 2: "Explosion"
> 
> Unbeta'd, dying like a fool, the usual.

Chloe saw the bomb before Lucifer did.

They were clearing an abandoned building, looking for a multiple murderer. The first floor was empty and as she rounded the corner of the stairwell, she saw the bomb at the top. There wasn't time to defuse it as the timer counted down the last few seconds to zero.

She grabbed Lucifer's arm in a vise-like grip as he came up next to her, turning to try to get down the stairs anyway, like she could ever move that fast, and radioing for the rest of the team to get out. She knew the instant Lucifer saw the bomb from the way his entire body strung tight.

Two seconds wasn't time to get very far at all.

Before she got her foot off the ground to take the first step, Lucifer grabbed her and then her vision whited out as the bomb went off—the noise like the pop of a firecracker only louder and closer—and then they were falling, tumbling down the stairs as they disintegrated beneath them. She thought maybe Lucifer was screaming, but her ears were ringing too hard to tell, and then a wave of heat washed over them. If he hadn't been screaming before, he was definitely screaming now.

As they tumbled to a halt, she realized—as the white in front of her vision singed at the edges and started to be threaded with red—that he had wrapped her in his wings. He slumped over her, heavier than he looked, crushing her to the ground as the building shook around them. When she managed to get out from under his dead weight, the air was so filled with dust she took one breath and immediately started coughing. There was rubble all around, but thankfully none on top of them.

Then she turned, waving her hand in front of her face to try to clear the air, and saw Lucifer. Her gorge rose as she stared at this back—his wings. They were singed black and flaking, and the skin she could see below was burned and weeping clear fluid. One dangled at an odd angle, both spread out along the ground.

"Lucifer," she breathed out, dropping to the ground in front of him, unsure where it would be safe to touch him without hurting him.

What was he going to do? He couldn't go to the hospital and she didn't think he could move either wing. She couldn't just leave him there to hopefully heal, not when there were so many cops around. There would be search and rescue teams going through if not everyone had made it out before the bomb went off. And there definitely hand't been time to make it out; she had failed to see the bomb in enough time to give people a chance.

"Lucifer," she said again, louder this time, and he twitched with a pained groan, slowly coming back to consciousness.

"D'tective?" he slurred. He went to move—she saw his wings twitch with it—and screamed, a hoarse shout that cut off on a sob.

She shushed him gently as she reached out to run her hand through his hair, getting dust and chips of cement out of it. She didn't know what else to do. She could hear an ambulance in the distance—or was it closer than that? She couldn't tell through the ringing—and hoped it was coming for them.

"What-" he started, sounding more together. His wings twitched again and he cried out through his teeth, clearly trying to keep silent.

"Bomb," she said and realized she was shaking. Her hand trembled as it continued to card through his hair.

"Are you-" he stopped, panting. His eyes when she bent over to see his face, were glazed with pain.

"I'm fine," she said, even though she couldn't make her hands stop shaking and her ears were ringing so bad she could barely hear him. Tears had started to make their way down her face, tracking through the dust and dripping, black with it, onto her hand. She used the free one to swipe across her face. "I'm fine. You're-"

"So very far beyond fine, yes, I'm aware," he said, gritting his teeth. He sounded more together, but she could see the effort it was taking him in the strain on his face. "I can't move them."

"Your wings?" she asked and he grimaced, nodding. His breathe came in harsh pants as he tried to struggle to his knees and failed, collapsing back down.

"People can't see them," he said, desperate and like she hadn't figured that out already. "Divinity does funny things to their minds."

"What do I do?" she asked, dashing her hand across her face again and willing the tears to stop.

He took a shuddering breath and then said, his voice firm like his face wasn't wet with tears of pain, "You need to fold them to my back."

She stared at him in horror. "I can't- No! Are you crazy?"

"Can't make them disappear like this," he said. "Do it, Detective. Quickly."

"You-" she said, looking around, "You need something to bite on, something to-"

"I'll be fine," he said. He didn't sound like he would be fine, not with how his voice was shaking. "Just do it."

She paused, trying to figure out if there was another way, any other way, but she couldn't come up with anything. It wasn't like she could go out there and be like, "Oh, Lucifer? He went home, he's fine, nothing to worry about."

"Okay," she said, more to herself than to him. "Okay, this is gonna hurt."

"I'm well aware," he said, his voice as stiff as his body.

When she touched his feathers, they crumbled beneath her fingers and he moaned an unhappy sound. She could see a ragged hole the size of a quarter where a piece of debris must have gone through. She shuddered to think about what would have happened had it been her taking the brunt of the explosion.

The scream of pain that came out of him when she moved the first wing, the one that wasn't broken, almost had her dropping it and saying she couldn't, she just couldn't hurt him like this. But she didn't pause even as she started crying again, just kept steadily and quickly pushing until it was folded up against his back. Blood was flowing down it now, a steady trickle that dripped to the floor.

"If you could give me a moment," he panted, his voice rough and shaking.

"Of course," she said, scooting back around to where she could run her hand through his hair again, hoping it was giving him some comfort.

They sat silently as the dust began to settle and the ringing in her ears started to grow more distant. She became aware of the radio crackling through the ringing, sharp words and sharper commands from the people on the other end. She should tell them she was okay, but she couldn't do that until Lucifer had his wings hidden.

"Okay," he said just as she was thinking she should ask him if he was ready. "If you could..."

She moved to the side and stared at the wing, the bottom half dangling from the joint at an odd angle.

"Lucifer..." She didn't know if it was dislocated or broken, or how to set it without injuring him further.

"Just pop it back in the socket; it will be fine."

She steeled her nerves and did as he asked, feathers crumbling and skin shifting uneasily beneath her hands. The noise he made as she did made her want to throw up, and the noise the joint made as it popped back into alignment didn't help.

"Okay," she said. "Okay. Ready?"

"Just do it," he ground out.

So she did.

* * *

Lucifer sauntered out of the wreckage of the building like nothing was wrong with him, and Chloe couldn't help but be impressed at that. Then she realized why his pain tolerance was so high and wanted to start crying all over again.

He joked with the EMTs as they swarmed over Chloe, getting her a shock blanket for her shaking and bundling her to sit on the bumper of an ambulance. She was pretty sure she was the only person who noticed how pale he was, and how he was walking stiffly and sweating at the collar.

"Go home," she murmured to him when he paused and braced himself against the side of the ambulance with one hand. "Take the car. I'll catch a ride from Dan."

"Would you..." he started, then grimaced and shook his head a little. "No, of course, you're right."

He had pulled the keys out of her pocket almost without her noticing and was gone before she could ask him what he had been about to ask. Sometimes he still had trouble with the idea that she would do just as much for him as he would do for her. Sometimes he forgot that she loved him and wanted him to be happy, to feel good.

She sighed and turned her attention back to the paramedic that was trying to check her over.

* * *

She knew that she couldn't go to Lux, even though Dan had taken Trixie for the night, promising her cake and a movie because Mommy had a rough day at work and needed to rest. Lucifer needed space so that he would heal. She knew that, but it was still... hard, not to call an uber and go see him.

She took a shower instead, standing under the spray until the water ran clear, trying not to think about how close she had come to dying. It wasn't the first time and it wouldn't be the last. It shouldn't bother her. But she couldn't stop shaking now that she was home and remembering the sound of Lucifer's screaming.

The sandwich she made herself when she got out of the shower was tasteless and dry in her mouth. She could still feel the grit of crumbling feathers under her fingers, no matter what she touched, no matter how often she washed them. She was in her fluffiest, most comforting pajamas and all she could think about was how Lucifer's back had been covered in blood and soot from his wings and not one person had noticed.

She knew it was because he hadn't wanted them to, knew that there was a reason he had made sure not to let a paramedic get behind him, but it still rankled her. It felt like someone should have _seen_, even through all the work he was doing to make sure no one did.

When her phone rang, she jumped on it.

"Chloe?" Lucifer said on the other end, his voice strained. "I realize you're likely- Could you perhaps come to Lux? Beatrice is welcome-"

"Dan took her for the night," she said, already heading to her bedroom to change into more appropriate clothing. Still casual, but not pajamas casual.

"Ah," he said and took a breath.

It sounded like it pained him, and she bit her lip, wanting to ask what was wrong. But if he was inviting her over, he must be completely healed, right? He wouldn't want her around until it didn't hurt to have her there.

"I'll be there as soon as I can get an uber, alright?" she asked, pulling on nice underwear—nothing fancy, but also not something she would mind Lucifer seeing—and a pair of old jeans.

"I-" He seemed to struggle with words for a moment before saying, "Yes, of course."

"Are you..." she put the phone on speaker and put it on her bed so she could hook her bra on. "Are you okay? You sound..."

He laughed, a breathy sound that told her all she needed to know. "I'll be better once you're here, darling," he said and she didn't think he meant _healed_.

"Okay," she said. "I'll see you in a little bit. I love you."

There was a pause on the other end and she could just see him blinking in surprise the way he did sometimes when she was openly affectionate, either in word or deed.

"I love you too," he said finally, his voice full of wonder like it was so frequently when she said those little words.

Her life had been so full of love and Lucifer was so sweet, she couldn't imagine going so long without knowing that someone loved him. And yet, he had. So long that every time she said it he sounded slightly amazed when he said it back. She had vowed when she got him back from Hell to make up for that lack. She didn't know how long it was going to take him to get over that instinctive reaction, but she was going to find out, no matter how long it took her.

* * *

When she reached his penthouse, Lucifer called to her from the bedroom. She gasped when she saw him, facing away from her. His hair was wet like he'd showered, and he was wearing the silk pajama bottoms she liked in deference to her, but that wasn't what held her attention. His wings were out and they looked _awful_. 

Most of the feathers on the back of them had been burned off, and the skin looked like it needed a good debriding. She could see new pink skin under the strips that needed to come off, so it wasn't like he hadn't healed at all, but...

"Lucifer," she said, blinking hard as her vision went watery and she noticed a trickle of blood still dripping from what looked like a clean slit near the top of one of them. "I shouldn't even be here! You're not- I shouldn't be here yet."

She took a step backward, but his strained, "Please," stopped her.

His voice was soft and vulnerable, but even so she hovered on the edge of leaving anyway, letting him heal in peace. Finally she sighed and walked up to him, cupping his cheeks and drawing his head down so she could press a quick kiss to his lips.

"Okay," she said when she pulled away. "I'm here." The _what do you need_ went unspoken. It didn't matter what he asked for; she would give it to him. He had saved her life; it was the least she could do. Especially when she knew he would never ask anything objectionable of her.

"I need you to remove an unfortunately placed piece of debris."

Okay, he might ask one objectionable thing of her.

She stared at him, shaking her head slowly. "I can't- I'm not trained to do that. I could really hurt you! Isn't there someone-" She ran through all the people who knew him in her head and realized she was probably the best option.

"Just you," he said carefully. "But I understand if you don't want to-"

"It's not that I-" she started, then shook her head. Not the point. "Okay, where is it?"

He looked so relieved she regretted her moment of panic. "Between my shoulder blades. I'm sure you'll be able to see it."

He turned away again and she had to admit that yes, now that she was looking, she could see a lump where his skin had healed over something. His wings shifted as she looked and she could hear his swift intake of breath. That was what decided her.

"Okay," she said. "I can do this."

"If I didn't think you could, I wouldn't've asked," he said, his voice warm.

She found herself smiling softly, and carefully went around him, dodging his wings, and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him again. "Thank you. Do you want to do this on the bed?"

His eyes lit up and he smirked at her. "Darling, if you wanted to get me in bed, you didn't have to go to all this trouble with a bomb."

She laughed and pecked his lips again. "That doesn't affect me anymore."

"So you admit that it used to," he said, looking smug enough that she rolled his eyes and smacked his arm.

"Bed," she said, and he went with a wink and a grin. "Do you have-" She looked around as she spoke and spotted a bottle of vodka, a knife, and a pair of pliers laid out on the bedside table. "Pliers? Really?"

"Well I hardly keep a full medical kit around," he said as if that made _pliers_ a reasonable alternative.

She knew he didn't have to, but couldn't stop herself from asking, "Did you sterilize them at least?"

"Of course!" he said and took a swig from his flask, which must have been on—or under—the pillow. "What do you think the vodka was for?"

She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. That would have to do. It wasn't like he could get sick anyway, so she supposed he hadn't needed to sterilize it in the first place.

She picked up the knife, carved with a series of glyphs she didn't recognize, and the pliers. Then she crawled up onto the bed and straddled his body. "Do you need something to bite on?"

"I'm not putting teeth marks in one of my belts, if that's what you're suggesting," he said.

Right, of course. The Devil take anyone who tried to make him hurt his precious wardrobe.

"Okay," she said, reading herself with a deep breath and telling her hands to stop shaking. "Ready?"

"Do get on with it," he said. "Then we can move to much more fun things."

She laughed and dug the knife into his skin. It turned out that cutting through living skin wasn't the same as cutting through dead meat, and she had to use more pressure than she thought just to pierce it and get deep enough. It was a sharp knife, but back skin was thick and harder to hurt.

When the knife clinked against something solid, Lucifer's muffled cry of pain had her almost calling the whole thing off. But it would be better to just get it over with, she knew that, so she didn't stop. She just reached into the hole with the needle-nosed pliers and pulled out a chunk of concrete, letting it fall to the bed. Neither of them had thought to grab something to staunch the blood with.

"Not that I'm not enjoying your company, darling, but perhaps you could go pick up some takeout?" Lucifer said before she could start casting around for something to press against the wound. His voice was tight with pain. "I do believe I'm going to take another shower."

She noticed that he didn't tell her to go home, so she decided not to offer it up as an option. She wanted to stay with him, and if he wanted that too, there was no reason for her to try to convince him differently.

"How about I'll take my time and you call me when it's safe for me to come back," she told him and dropped a quick kiss to the nape of his neck before leaving.

* * *

It took a full half an hour before her phone buzzed with a text that it was safe to return. When she got back, bag of chinese food in hand, he was leaning against the bar, sipping a glass of whiskey. As soon as he saw her, he crossed the room and swept her up into a tight hug that had her yelping as he crushed the food between them.

When he kissed her, it was with a desperate sort of hunger. The hand he placed on her cheek was trembling. She wanted to kiss away his pain, kiss away his fear, but she wasn't faring much better herself.

"I'm okay. I'm alright," she mumbled agains this lips, unsure who she was trying to reassure. "You saved me."

He pulled away to rest his forehead on hers, framing her face with his hands and breathing hard. "Not a scratch on you?"

"Not a scratch on me," she confirmed, her voice quiet in the space between them. She couldn't stop thinking about his wings, how ragged they had looked, the fragile new skin and the blood running over it that she caused. "Not like you. Can I see them?"

He froze in her arms for a moment and pulled back, cautious. "They don't hurt anymore, darling, but they still look a fright."

"I know, I just..." She was going to see them in her nightmares, she knew. But maybe if she saw that they were whole, that there were no more buried chunks of concrete to pull out, her sleeping mind would be soothed.

"Alright," he said without more protest, taking a step back and unfurling them. He winced as he did, so they couldn't have been really pain free, and she bit her lip but didn't say anything.

The front looked almost normal. The tops were lighter on feathers than she remembered, but that could just be her memory failing. The feathers were still soft and warm as she absently trailed her hand over them while she walked behind him, only vaguely noticing the way he shivered at that.

The backs, though. Oh, the backs. The skin was shiny and pink, looking less like it needed debridement, and there were little pinpricks of feathers starting to come through. If it weren't for the knowledge that this had happened to him while he was protecting her, she would have laughed at how much he looked like a baby bird whose feathers were just coming in.

He jumped when her fingers touched the bare skin and she jerked back, her breath caught in her throat. "Sorry, sorry," she said.

"No," he said and shook them a little, his voice choked. "They're just sensitive. If- If you wouldn't mind-"

"What?" she asked when he didn't continue.

He was sometimes oddly reticent about his more otherworldly features, like he was still afraid she was going to run screaming if he so much as mentioned divinity. She watched as the skin rippled, twitching like a dog trying to get something off its back.

"I have some lotion that would help with the itching," she said, hazarding a guess as to what he wanted.

His sigh of relief had her grimacing a little. She understood, she supposed, why he was worried about his more devilish aspects scaring her away even though she'd tried to make sure he knew she wasn't bothered, but when it came to something like his wings, she wasn't sure why it was supposed to bother her.

When she told him so, her hands smoothing across his wings with a firm touch as she did, he laughed hoarsely. "I suppose it's just habit."

"Okay," she said, deciding to let it go. "I have a small bottle of lotion in my purse, unless you have something else you'd prefer."

"As much as I love the smell of citrus," he said, "I have some aloe lotion in the bedroom."

She raised an eyebrow at him when he turned around, his wings folding back with barely a wince from him, and said, "If you're trying to get in my pants, Mr. Morningstar, you'll have to do more work than that."

He barked out a surprised laugh and said, "Will I really?"

She stepped further into her space, tilting her head up so he could kiss her. "Probably not," she murmured before he claimed her lips.

She could have kissed him forever, just stood there pressed against him and exploring his mouth until the end of time. She could feel her heart growing three sizes when he made a quiet, pleased noise against her mouth when she nipped lightly at his bottom lip.

But all too soon, she pulled back, smiling at his disappointed whine and patting his cheek. "Later," she said and his eyes lit up, like she wasn't a sure thing.

In the bedroom, he rummaged through a drawer and produced a bottle of aloe lotion, then flopped face-first on the bed. "Have at me, Detective."

She started at the tip of his left wing, using long, smooth strokes to rub the lotion into his skin. He had hissed at first contact, mumbling something about cold when she hummed a question, so she made sure to warm up the lotion in her hands before spreading it slowly and carefully. He made quiet noises as she did it, little murmurs and happy sighs.

She loved that, loved making him taken care of, feel loved. She could still picture the first time she'd asked what he wanted in bed and refused to let him turn it back around on her. He looked at her like she was some kind of miracle, like no one had ever done that for him before. Like he was _undeserving_ of it.

She pressed a soft kiss to the skin in front of her as she got close to the middle of his back, making him make an inquiring noise in her general direction.

"Just thinking," she said, and got off the bed.

She could see his body tense when she did, the boneless relaxation gone far more suddenly than it had come. She trailed her hand across his ankles as she walked around the end of the bed to get to the wing on the other side, and he sighed, relaxing again. He was still so touch-starved, even after all this time, that the slightest bit of contact from her was sometimes enough to keep him relaxed and happy for days. It had taken her a while to notice, but since she had, she made it a point to touch him as often as possible, just friendly, loving touches that had nothing to do with sex.

As she smoothed the lotion into his other wing, he relaxed further again, seeming to melt into the bed. This time, when she got near the center of his back, she straddled him and carefully put her weight into rubbing lotion up the center of his back, giving him an impromptu massage that had him groaning underneath her.

"Here, darling, let me-" he started, shifting like he was going to get up, but she pressed a hand gently between his shoulder blades, not holding him down—she could never hold him down even if she wanted to—but asking that he stay put.

"Let me do this for you ," she said quietly, bending down to place a kiss between his shoulder blades. "I- You could have died today, and I just- Let me take care of you."

He was quite as she placed another kiss below the first, then another and another. She could almost feel him turning that over in his head, trying to make it fit into the narrative he had for himself. When she dug into a knot in his shoulder with her thumb, her groaned and all the remaining tension in him collapsed, leaving him a puddle beneath her and putty in her hands.

"There, like that," she said, stroking up his sides with firm pressure that didn't tickle. "Let me just-"

She realized she was crying and tried to dash the tears away before _he_ realized. She wasn't sure why she was in the first place, except maybe releasing the rest of the tension she had been carrying with her all day. As long as she didn't think too closely about how she had almost died, she felt okay. This wasn't-

"Chloe?" he asked uncertainly when a tear splashed onto his back.

"I'm okay," she said, the tremble in her voice belying her words.

Between one moment and another he had twisted around on the bed, wings disappearing, and pulled her into a tight hug on top of him.

"I don't know why I'm crying," she gasped, burying her face in his bare chest. "I'm fine. You're fine. Everything is okay."

He just shushed her, holding onto her tight while she quietly cried. He buried his face in her hair and she thought she felt his breath hitch. She was shivering even though she was fully dressed, and he carefully drew the blankets over them before rubbing his hands up and down her back, trying to soothe her. When she finally looked up, her lashes heavy with tears, he was watching her with a slightly panicked look on his face, his eyes wet.

"I'm okay," she said, letting go of him so she could run a thumb underneath each of his eyes, swiping at the wetness that was there, then leaning in to kiss him gratefully. He kissed back hungrily and, well, there were worse ways to end a day that started with almost getting blown up. And not many better ones. So she leaned into the kiss and tried to help him forget as much as he was helping her.

The End


End file.
